


The Somnambulist

by BlueVase



Category: Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Danvich - Freeform, F/F, Rough Sex, Sleepwalking, sad fic, sad sex, sex in front of a mirror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26447986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueVase/pseuds/BlueVase
Summary: The second Mrs de Winter turns out to be something of a somnambulist. Oneshot.
Relationships: Danvich, Mrs Danvers/Ich, Mrs Danvers/Narrator, Mrs Danvers/the narrator, Mrs Danvers/the second Mrs de Winter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The Somnambulist

I ran; he pursued.

Through the west wing, along the minstrel gallery, down down down the stairs I fled.

His strong feet followed me.

I was impossible to grab, like holding a handful of water. Salt water he’d think me no doubt, the brine choking, enough to ruin a man should he mistake me for something purer and drink me down.

Fool him, for thinking he could consume me whole.

Over the lawn I sped, into the woods.

He followed me there, and I knew that I had been the fool all along; did I think I would find shelter amongst the oaks? There was no place on this plot of land that would harbour me; this soil held no secrets from him, for it was his, and he loved it wickedly, obsessively, until there was no love left to give and he grew cold and twisted.

A clinging sob escaped my lips. He had found me, my demon, my tormentor, my husband…

A hand closed around my upper arm. I screamed and tried to pull away, but my attacker wouldn’t let go. I scratched at that pale long hand bruising my flesh, drawing blood, but it might as well have been made of wax, for it didn’t seem to have any effect. He spoke to me, but I couldn’t make out any words. I was so afraid I feared I might faint or die.

“Let go let go let go…” I sobbed, prising at the thin fingers.

A fierce slap against my temple stunned and silenced me. I looked up into a white, skull-like face, and did not recognise it at once. When I did, I thought I might weep.

“Mrs Danvers,” I said.

She still held my arm in her bleeding hand, the other locked around my wrist. All around me the air smelled of sap and green things and salt. Trees swayed around us in the wind coming from the sea, their gnarled stems creaking and groaning. I felt dizzy and had to sit down. I almost pulled her down with me. She had very long hair, pleated for bed. It slithered down her shoulder and swung against my chest like a twist of rope.

“Where are we? Where have you taken me?” I asked, still tugging at her fingers.

“I didn’t take you anywhere,” she snapped, “you were sleepwalking, Madam. God knows how you’ve done it, but you’ve sleepwalked straight out of the house and into the woods. I saw you crossing the lawn from my bedroom window as I made to fasten the shutters.”

 _Ah_. That explained why we were outside in the dark surrounded by moaning trees; we were in the Manderley woods.

I felt so ashamed I might weep. Such a thing as this had never happened with Rebecca, of this I was sure. It was a common, vulgar thing, somnambulism, an affliction that plagued the weak of heart and mind.

“Why did you wake me? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to wake a sleepwalker?”

Finally she let go of my arm and wrapped a handkerchief round her hand. “I have noticed,” she said. The blood bloomed through the cotton.

Guilt smote me. “I’m so sorry. Does it hurt terribly? I didn’t mean to scratch you. Well, I meant to scratch you, but if I had known it was _you_ , I wouldn’t have, of course,” I babbled. The ground was wet with dew, making my nightgown stick to my legs. I shivered and hugged myself.

Mrs Danvers did not answer. She pulled me to my feet and draped her shawl over my shoulders. It smelled like her. It was a strangely intimate thing, that piece of fabric to which her scent and warmth clung lying against my throat and shoulders.

“Come,” she said.

I followed her. We went slowly; I wasn’t wearing any shoes, and now that I was awake I felt every pebble, every twig cutting into the soft soles of my feet. We reached a gurgling stream and halted there, Mrs Danvers dipping her hand into it and gasping; the water was brackish. I bit my nails, tugging at the slivers of skin that had caught under there, a little bit of Mrs Danvers in my mouth. She shook her hand. Drops dripped from her fingers like diamonds. She wound the handkerchief back round her hand. I tried to help her knot it, but she pulled her hand back with the swift, waspish motion of one incensed with their own weakness.

I felt I had to explain myself to her. “I thought you were attacking me. I was dreaming.”

“What were you dreaming of?”

I hesitated, then said, “Of _her_. I was so afraid…”

Mrs Danvers turned to look at me. In the wan moonlight, her face was smooth as bone. She had a hungry look on her face, her eyes smouldering. “Afraid, Madam? Why, what did you dream? Did she mean you harm?”

I shook my head. “No, Mrs Danvers. She wasn’t the one attacking me.” I would say no more and averted my face. After a while, she dried her fingers on her nightgown and led me on. I did my best not to be scared by the groaning trees with their laced branches forming a vaulted ceiling over our heads, or by the strange sounds coming from deep inside.

I thought she was taking me back to the house, and so when the woods gave way and we found ourselves suddenly on the shingled beach, it came as a nasty sort of shock. The wind was fierce, whipping the waves till they foamed.

“Mrs Danvers, this is the wrong way,” I said, clutching her shawl round me. My wet nightgown snapped round my legs like a sail.

She did not respond but went ahead to the boathouse I knew was forbidden to me. Since I was too much of a coward to find my way back to Maxim by myself, and since I was cold and scared, I had no choice but to follow her.

“Careful; don’t cut your feet,” she said. When we reached the boathouse she struggled with the door, having to open it against the wind. She shouldered it aside and bade me enter first.

The boathouse was dirty, dusty, smelling of mould and salt. There was a stillness to it all, not so much a slumber as the careful lying-in-wait of a predator ready to pounce. Yet at the same time I knew I was being fanciful, for it was no more than a decaying boathouse, its books and furniture spoilt by time and damp.

Mrs Danvers lit a lamp. There was another one with us in that haunted shack then, a pale wraith who drew back when I did. Startled, my hand flew to my mouth; hers did, too. I could’ve laughed, then, had it not frightened me so badly; I had taken my reflection for a ghost.

Mrs Danvers threw back the covers on the bed. They smelled musty and slightly of camphor, but though their edges were frayed, they were serviceable. “We shall wait here till it becomes light,” she said. “I’ll go to the house then and fetch some clothes and shoes for you. How are your feet? Have you cut them on the shingle? You must remove your nightgown, or you’ll be chilled. Don’t be afraid; I won’t look.”

I dragged the sodden nightgown over my head, wiped my feet with it, and draped it over a chair, wrapping Mrs Danvers’ shawl around me.

I saw my every move in the looking glass. I stilled and studied myself. The flicker of the lamp made it seem as if my features swam and shifted, an ebb and flow of rippling change. My face, and then another’s, and back again.

Mrs Danvers appeared in the mirror behind me. She stood so close to me I felt the heat beat off of her. Her breathing was deep and regular. It blew over my cheek and ear, very softly, stirring the little curls of baby hair that grew at my temple. Why I didn’t know, but it was pleasant, that soft ghosting against the cockle of my ear.

 _It’s because Maxim doesn’t touch me,_ I thought, _it’s because I’m a bride of three months and still as immaculate as when he found me in Monte Carlo._

“You think of her often, don’t you?” she whispered. “I know you do; I know it from the things you say, the way you hold yourself. It’s all right, Madam; I think of her incessantly, too.”

Gooseflesh rippled over my body.

Mrs Danvers wet her lips with her tongue. Her features rippled in the mirror, too. “Do you think the dead watch the living?”

“I don’t know.” My voice was a small thing, curled up and quivering.

“I think she watches us. I wonder what she thinks of you. Sometimes, I fancy she tries to break through the veil that separates her world from ours.” Mrs Danvers took a lock of lanky hair between her fingers and pushed it behind my ear, careful not to touch skin. “Sometimes,” she went on, “I fancy she tries to possess you. There are signs. I look at you, and she’s there in the way you shake your pen to get the ink flowing, in the way you unscrew your earrings, or call to the dogs. Once, I thought she looked at me through your eyes. They were so alive, so vibrant. Only for a short spell, though; then they dulled, and I knew she had gone, her power spent. Does Mr de Winter see it, too?”

“No,” I said.

“Of course not. He’s a man, and they are naturally blind and deaf. But you see it, don’t you? You feel her presence as much as I do. I thought you sly at first; then I thought you dull and stupid. But you are none of those things, now are you?”

“There’s strength in passivity, Mrs Danvers,” I said, quite calmly, quite rationally, as if this was normal.

We locked eyes in the mirror. Her breathing came quick now. The space between my legs clenched painfully. “Is it you?” she whispered. There was pain in her voice, and urgency. “Madam, is that you?”

Perhaps I truly was possessed then, for I let the shawl covering me tumble to the ground so she could see my body in the guttering light. I clasped her wounded hand so fiercely she hissed and guided it to that place she had caused to contract with want. For a moment it lay limp against me, a cold, dead thing. Then it stirred. She parted my folds and pressed a cool, long finger against me. I moaned and arched up against her.

She drew circles very gently until I tightened my grip on her hand; she rubbed me quite fiercely then, the cotton of her handkerchief rough against me. I took her other hand and placed it on my breast, twisting my face round so I could kiss her.

She was so fierce she made me tremble, but then I suppose I wasn’t gentle, either. I thrust against her hand, moaned into her mouth. She groped and bruised and rubbed. Something inside me coiled and strained, tighter, tighter, tighter…

I cried out when it broke; I could not help it. My legs went so weak I could hardly stand. I trembled, then stumbled. She twisted me round and held me against her, kissing my face, my hair. Her hand had begun to bleed again. She pushed her fingers in my mouth. “Bite me and I’ll slap you,” she said.

I sucked on them. They tasted sharp, like vinegar, like brine.

_Like blood._

She withdrew them, wiping them on her nightgown. I rested my face against her throat. She was damp with sweat. The blood beat in her throat; I felt it jump about in her veins.

We stood together like that for a while, both trembling and panting. “Madam,” she said, but I would not raise my head to look at her. “Madam,” she repeated, cupping my chin and forcing me to look at her. She studied my features, her eyes darting like quick, hungry things. For a moment I could see right inside her; the rage, the desire, the hope, all barely supressed. Then, her face fell, and all was strangled down and swept out of side, her face a white mask, still and beautiful but utterly lifeless, as if made of wax or bone. She let go of me and began to fiddle with the lamp.

“Danny,” I pleaded, placing my hand on her shoulder. She jerked away as if stung.

“Don’t you ever call me that!” she hissed. “Don’t you dare!”

My throat constricted. Tears coursed down my cheeks. I wiped at them with the back of my hand. I felt cold and dirty.

Mrs Danvers turned her back to me. I tried to stifle a sob and couldn’t.

“You must sleep,” she said, her voice cold. “We shall forget this has ever happened.”

I picked up her shawl and wrapped myself in it, then lay down on the bed, my face to the wall. I bit on the edge of her shawl in an effort to stopper my mouth, but my weeping crawled through the fabric. Outside, the wind howled and whined, whistling through the crannies of the boathouse.

It could not drown out the sound of Mrs Danvers keening.


End file.
